Do you smell?

“Sometimes we have to stop
and smell the humans!”

During an online book club session this week I made what I thought was a rather funny but poignant quip that I would like to share.

It came from a fun discussion we were having about Nadia Bolz-Webber’s book Accidental Saints: Finding God in all the Wrong People. I’d love to tell you what the genesis of this conversation was, but that’s not so easy to do. If you’ve ever been on a group thread you know how easy it is to veer off course and wind up in a “rabbit hole” that has nothing to do with the original statement. And that’s just what we did.

During the discussion our fearless book group leader Rev. Dawn Carlson said, “Part of it is just taking the time to look [at other people]. We raced through life, and don’t often stop to look, really look at people.”

My reply was simply this, “Sometimes we have to stop, and smell the humans!”

That’s something to think about.

People smell. Some better and some worst than others. But we all have a scent. And like a rose or a gardenia, we have to stop and smell a person every so often. That is, we have to stop and spend a little time with one another in a way that allows us to appreciate who they are. And what they smell like.

We all have a nose (or a tongue if you’re a snake). So how will we use it?

How might this sense change the way we see “the least of these” or “the more pungent of these” or “the different than us of these” that God has so beautifully called, “my beloved children”?

We can all smell. So let’s do it.